So warm at the end of last week--one farmer said it was the first time he'd ever plowed in March... then on Monday came the rain, so the swamp filled up with water reflecting the sky, so it looked like the solid ground was just a thin skin, like ice, here and there, interrupting water and sky, and then yesterday came snow, and it's snowing now. I picked a whole bunch of daffodils yesterday that had the misfortune to bloom early; now they're in water indoors. I planted strawberries (thanks grayhayes) earlier... now they're under snow. But I think they're tough and will make it.

I hear there's rain in the west, too... maybe there will be rain where stdymphna is.

Before the snow came, when it was just rain, the streams were full and rushing, and along their edges, the moss was bright, bright green. It'll still be bright green when the snow goes, which it will in just a moment--even yesterday, the first snow fell and lined every branch in that very beautiful way, but then five minutes later it was melting off the branches, and the scene was no longer so magical. Definitely a picture of the evanescence of things! もののあわれ and all...

Next post will include some recipes... right now I have to rush off to all my jobs, leading the Resistance fighters, curing the Creeping Plague, planning the welcome banquet for the Knights of the Willow Branch, transcribing the songs and lore that the old Sage of the Deep Dell recalls, training in the arts of invisibility and stealth... you know... a typical working day.

***little addition: the snow on the branches looks like bleached coral

****further addition... I guess, since bleached coral is a sad thing, that it's not so good to compare the trees with snow on them to bleached coral... it's probably like saying, "Oh, how beautiful--like the whitened bones of my ancestors!"--an image that horrifies or confuses. Well. But they do look that way... and I will never get any work done if I keep tinkering with this entry!!